Exam board may face fine over Shakespeare GCSE blunder

A plague o’ both your houses: the exam mixed up the main protagonists’ families — the Capulets and the MontaguesMOVIESTORE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

It’s not just children who make mistakes and have to face the consequences. The exam regulator has told The Sunday Times that she is considering fining the exam board that mixed up the two warring families in a GCSE question about Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet this summer.

The OCR exam board confused the Capulets and the Montagues in a question on the English literature paper. Around 14,000 teenagers took the exam.

Candidates were asked: “How does Shakespeare present the ways in which Tybalt’s hatred of the Capulets influences the outcome of the play?” Since Tybalt is Juliet’s cousin and a Capulet, the question should have referred to his hatred of the Montagues.

In an interview Sally Collier, head of Ofqual, said the mistake was one…